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The thing is, I don’t knit socks, I never had,and I don’t really have any plans to start knitting them. I like the things I knit; the lace shawls, the mittens, the fingerless gloves, the cardigans and tops and sweater. I don’t really feel the need to take on a sock, I don’t feel the calling.

But still I had a lot of sock yarn, a whole big box of it! Of course I could knit shawls and fingerless mitts of it (and I am actually working on a cardigan now with some sock yarn) but most of my sock yarn was in colors I’m not really a huge fan of, cause most of my sock yarn has been given go me as gifts from people who thinks I knit socks. So what’s a girl to do? I put my yarn out for adoption. I said come trade with me, and they came, of course they did, knitters love a good bargain, knitters love yarn, sock knitters want sock yarn. So some of my yarn is going to Finland. Some sock yarn will move to the Great Britian. And yesterday I sent a big box across the atlantic, cause most of my sock yarn will move to Canada. There they will be taken good care of, by a nice lady who loves to knit socks. She likes lace too, so I know she’s a good person ;-) Doing a trade means you get something back, around the same value as the things you’re giving away. And earlier this week I got my trade goodies :-)

The pics are all cellphone pics and doesnt offer this lovely yarn any justice at all, but here is what I got.

I got the yarn River by Fleece Artist. I got two skeins in my favorite colors; grey (hey, don’t judge me!) and purple. River consists of 40% Alpaca, 30% Merino, 30% Silk, or just OMG SO SOFT, YUMNOM, OMG! as I like to call it. Seriously, its like a cloud, and I felt so bad for the clouds that had traveled so far, that I actually hang up the purple skein on the wall in my yarn room. (well hello there, I’m crazy yarn woman). I have a plan for the purple skein. The grey will live in a box and be a cuddle cloud for a while.

I also got real maple syrup (yup, I opened it right away, cause I hadn’t tried maple syrup before), maple syrup tea, and hickory sticks. (for my norwegian readers: it tastes like roasted/slightly burned taffel sticks, very yum!) I also got a postcard from the fostermom’s city, so I know where my sock yarn will be staying. Looks like a nice town. It has a fort!

Thanks for the trade, Tara!

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I was gonna do a blog post about a cardigan today. A cardigan I am really proud of, but that blog post takes a while to make, I need to find those boring knitting details like yardage, needle sizes and such, cause we knitters like those boring details. So I will just postpone that for later in the week, as I am too busy today. Instead I will just put some pics her instead, you can call it picture ramblings,cause I do.

its growing! this is just some of the stuff that’s growing in my window shelves right now. My shelves are occupied, as this is Norway (snowstorm yesterday,no kidding ) they will remain occupied for a while. All are made from seeds. (Look, mom, I can make purple basil!)

He turned 2 years old on friday. I was hoping someone would give him some social skills for his birthday, but nah.. oh well, we love you anyway, Hugo!

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yeah,so.. sorry about my absence. Life happened, cause sometimes life does, and blogging seemed unimportant, cause when life happens I knit, drink wine, and eat too much candy.

I will try go get back in my blogging business, and I hope I still have some readers left. (helloooooo?)

Lets do a little picture re-cap of what I’ve been up to in between the candy eating and other stuff.

I’ve started a turquoise shawl, and the color is so way out of my color comfort zone, so I am not sure if I’ll keep this

I actually finished the five cowls, fifty days-kal. This is nr 3 I think, I am sending it to Finland, to someone who will love it more than I do.

I’ve started the ‘knit on the porch’season, then finished it, then started it again. It’s a little thing we like to call “you thought spring was on the way, sucker!” here in Norway

I got a new chair, or, well, I’m not sure if I did, but someone got a new chair!

I planted seeds! Lots of seeds. I should do a follow-up blog on that, cause things are growing. inside on the shelves for now though, this being Norway and all. (it was -6 celsius this morning)

I got a new phone! It’s a smart phone-touch phone thingy, and I am now so hooked on wordfeud that I don’t really have time to blog this. New smartphone of course means a fancy photo app so you can take pictures and make them look retro. I got a lomo app, here is some retroness for ya

yeah. that about sums it up.

and also; that big creature in the background there, who likes to think he is a chihuahua and can fit on those 3 free cm on the couch when I try to watc tv, turned 11 years old last week. Yeh hurray, Emil!

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Do you make new year resolutions? I don’t. What I do make though, is knit year resolutions. What I love most about knitting is that you’re never finished, you don’t get to a point where you can say “there, I am done, now I’m a completed knitter” cause you don’t complete knitting, there’s always another technique to learn, something to knit, a new pattern to try, a new chart to conquer. I love this hobby (read obsession) because I can challenge myself, and I can continue doing so, and I like a good challenge!

For 2011 I had several goals, one of them was to knit more wearable stuff. Not that I don’t wear the hats and cowls I make, cause indeed I do, but I wanted to move on to larger wearable garments. I completed that goal, I made several wests and short sleeved cardigans, and I wear them.

Another goal was to knit my first sweater. And I did! Yey me.

Then there was the goal of making my first big triangular lace shawl. I managed that too, even though it took me a way too long.

When it comes to new skills I wanted to contiue to challenge myself with lace projects, learn different raglan decreases and increases, and be better at short rows, as they have been scaring me a bit. Well not the short rows themselves, but things like wrapping the stitches, and picking up the wrapped stitch. I recently did a pattern that had all those things, and I worked my way through it, and now I’m not afraid anymore. (there will be a blog post about that project soon, it’s just that I fell in love with the cowl and been too busy wearing it to take pics)

Another goal was to get my stash organized. It was chaos; it was in bags and baskets, in every floor, everywhere. Well I am happy to say that I completed that goal too. I now have my little yarn shed with labeled boxes, and it’s great, I always know where to find stuff.

So what are the goals for 2012? I ended up with 5 main goals this year, and two extra goals :)

1: Cardigans: 2012 will be my year of cardigans. I have already started one, and I have two more planned. If I manage to finish 3 cardigans in a year I will be very happy.

2: Lace shawls: started one this Christmas, have two triangular lace shawls and a stole planned. I think I will be able to do this. (I might eat my words here, come December 2012, but that’s half the fun of this goal making)

3: Knit for babies and kids: Nope, I don’t have a kiddo in my tummy, but I have never knitted for babies before, or little people in general, and I want to do that. My boss is pregnant, and I plan to knit some booties and a hat and a kicking bag for her baby.

4: Knit something from Stephen West. Isn’t that like obligatory for a knitter? He he. Either you knit something from Stephen, or from Jared flood? Well I’m on team Stephen ;-D so I have a scarf planned.

5: Knit from stash! The other day, while I was looking for a skein of merino wool of some kind, in one of my yarn boxes, it was so full I hardly couldn’t find anything in it without emptying it all over. The same was the case in the other wool boxes, and I thought hey I need to buy more boxes. But then I though oh no you don’t, you need to destash!

I haven’t been a knitter for that many years (3 years) and much of my stash is from that first year when you buy one skein here and two of those, and one here, just because the yarn is soft/pretty/on sale/whatever. And suddenly you have lots of yarn you really can’t make anything with. But I really need to destash and I think stripes is the solution here. Stripes and baby clothing. Striped hats, cowls, shawls. Destash baby!

Knit from books: I think this will be my hardest goal to complete, but I am putting it up here, at least so to remind me that I do have many many knitting books and that I should knit from them! I really enjoy browsing through them, but then I go on Ravelry and find a similar pattern instead, cause my knitting books don’t have “yarn ideas” and project pictures. But I really should try to knit from my books, at least one thing. Come on, you can do this!